So I should be getting a ~~Piantor~~Ferris Sweep* from Beekeeb in a number of weeks and I thought I would get a head start and plan my layout - or at least one version of it, influenced heavily by Ben Vallack's video about avoiding press-and-hold mechanics.
Still plenty of fiddling to do. I want to move the WASD-style cursor keys in L3 onto my first three fingers for sure. In fact I've already changed it and made room for insert and added shift as a home key mod on the right. God this is addictive.
*ETA: I am, of course, talking about a Ferris Sweep with two thumb keys as depicted in the drawings not a Piantor, which I was also considering. I guess I was swayed by the alliteration.
Yeah I may tackle the symmetry of the braces. I work in IT so I use curly braces a lot followed by square brackets a fair amount. I'm left handed so that has influenced e.g. where the WASD cursor keys have added up and it gives the braces and brackets a bit more prominence, and also I'm UK ISO. But yeah I might end up choosing to be influenced by the right side of the QWERTY keyboard where the symbols are bunched up.
What I mean by avoiding press-and-hold is tapping L2 to get into layer 2 then staying in there until I tap L1 again. Athough, L2 might be instant return after one keypress and L3 might be "sticky" and require an L1 key press to return - I need to actually compile some alternatives and actually try it out in hand.
So basically I am avoiding chording unless I need to do the rare Ctrl-Win-RightArrow (which will require an instant return to L1 .. boy the coding in QMK is going to be a doozy and I don't even know if QMK is capable of it yet)
@hannadryad serious keyboard customization! You seem to be going really deep into the weeds of keyboard ergonomics, layout, and usage. It's impressive to see how much thought you're putting into the functionality and efficiency of your keyboard.
You're definitely a power user when it comes to keyboards, and it's cool to see how QMK and other keyboard customization tools can really make a difference for people who use them heavily
Well, I still have to see how well all of this translates into QMK. Steep learning curve ahead.
At a glance, this seems very doable in QMK. It has a whole heck of a lot of functionality built in, and there are user forks that do some stuff differently too. I wouldn't be too worried about it. Plus the documentation is excellent so if you have questions they can often get answered there